Sunday December 18th 2016

Weather wise the day was a clone of Saturday. It was hot for the season and very humid. The TV weather people were talking about near records again. Still better than the bitter cold up north, but not particularly comfortable.

The biggest focus for the day was watching football on television. The NFL season is in the run up to the playoffs. It seems like every game has an impact on the finals. The other good thing was that the Patriots Denver game was on the national broadcast. Not being able to see any Patriots game I want has been a big adjustment. I could by a DirecTV package to see all the NFL games, but I’m not that addicted.

In the morning before the games started I went out to explore the area. I found Christmas shopping traffic. Anytime I drove into an area with stores, the traffic became stop and go. Since I was exploring the area I didn’t know where the stores were located. It became a real challenge just to get back to he campground. Strangely, I didn’t have a similar problem on Saturday.

At half time of the early set of football games I went for another walk around the state park. I know believe that the burned area of the park was intentional. There is a sign that discusses the advantages of prescribed burns and more significantly, all of the developed parts of the park are not burned. Either way, it has been enough time since the burn that you have to look very close to find evidence of the burn as opposed to clear cut logging.

Anhinga dries its wings

There were more boats on the lake with fishermen today. At the boat launch I saw three boats taken out and one put in. It’s very entertaining watching the operation. As with many similar things, some people have it down pat and others struggle. Backing the twisty single axle trailers seems to be the biggest challenge. The acrobatics people go through not to get wet while loading the boat is a close second. I had to try hard not to laugh while I was watching.

Little Blue Heron in the weeds

Yesterday I didn’t see any birds around the shore of the lake. Today I saw a few. Near the day use area an Anhinga was drying its wings and a Little Blue Heron was having lunch in the weeds.